Bad Ads

There's some new cellulite cream made by Nivea that is supposed to reduce cellulite and leave your flabby, cottage cheese thighs smoother in one month. I simply don't believe it. And what leads further to my skepticism is the use of 15 year old models in the commercials who not only don't have cellulite, they barely have thighs!

I'm not a flabby person. I'm not a perfect size 2 either, but I'm often comfortable with my appearance. I try to work out 3 times a week. Many weeks I only make it to the gym once, but I'm there for at least an hour. I've had my share of dimples, but I've found that exercise, lots of water and a good low fat diet will do more for cellulite than any cream can.

I've also recently felt tortured by the ads for Apple's iPhone. I admit it. I want one. I want one very badly. I'm sad that I don't use AT&T/Cingular so I would have to spend $200 to cancel my existing cell phone contract, then wait in line to spend $500 on one. If I wait long enough will Verizon come out with an equally cool phone? I doubt it. I feel like I chose the old timer's cell phone service and now I'm never, ever going to be cool. Perhaps if I upgrade my iPod Mini and get a Nano or a video iPod, I'll feel better. Mental note, the next computer purchase will be a Mac.

My ten year old has been complaining of a sore throat so I finally took him to the doctor yesterday. This child is never sick so I expected the diagnosis to be something serious, something bacterial requiring strong antibiotics. I was wrong. For the second time in less than a year, I have taken a child to the doctor for a cold. I am such an idiot. One visit was actually to the allergist! That means I had to wait a few days for an appointment. I'm so embarrassed.

My five year old learned how to spell poop on "Sponge Bob" today. It's going to be a lovely day.

I Hate the Commute

The dog and I are up. It's about 5:55 am. My husband leaves for work at about 6:00, but today he needed gas so he left at 5:45. We live in a commuter suburb, so many people leave at these insane hours and don't return until 7:30 pm. I hate the commute and I don't even make it.

First, I hate that I am awakened at these ridiculous hours every day of the week. This is not a quiet or efficient man. He needs 40 minutes to get ready each day. During that time, there's a lot of walking back and forth from bedroom to bathroom. He leaves lights on, he hums and he talks to me! I don't want to talk at this time of day. I want to sleep. We have high maintenance children and a puppy. I need my strength.

Second, I hate the mess. Somehow, this fastidious man who shines his shoes twice a week can't clean up his breakfast mess. This morning, there's an oatmeal pan and bowl, some unwanted items he pulled out of his work bag, and the box of oatmeal on the kitchen table. He also leaves dirty clothes all over the bedroom and wet dirty towels on the bathroom floor. I guess he feels that his commute entitles him to be a pig, either that or he thinks I don't have enough to do each day and wants to leave me a project.

Third, the drive home takes a very long time. I don't really understand this. The drive to work can be anywhere from 40 minutes to and hour and fifteen minutes, depending on the time he leaves. The drive home is always over an hour. How does that work? I don't understand. Then, I'm supposed to wait for him for dinner. I can usually hold out, but there are nights I'm hungry and I eat with the boys. This should be understood as natural and not pouted about.

Many of my friends have the same situation in their homes (except for the early morning noise). It's nice to know that I have people close to me that understand what I'm going through. They can sympathize and they can also tell me to get over myself if I whine too much. Reality checks are important.

We've been watching "Charm School" on VH1. This is the show that brings all the girls from "Flavor of Love" under the tutelage of Mo'Nique to learn all the things their mothers should have taught them but never did. This has to be the sorriest group of young women you have ever seen in your life, but since it falls into my favorite category of mindless entertainment I'm drawn to it each Sunday like a moth to a flame. The mastery of communicating with only 4 letter words is awe inspiring. The slovenliness is breathtaking. And the drive that these girls have to win a paltry $50,000 is amazing. We're down to the final four. I have picked my favorite and I have my hopes that Mo'Nique will do more for the winner than just hand her a check. An education would be good, perhaps a scholarship to a community college for a degree in Nursing or Education could be added to the pot. New clothes would be nice too. Not that I'm the best dressed person in the world, but it is easier to be taken seriously if your ta-tas aren't hanging out all over the place. I hope for the best for these girls and I sincerely hope Mo has gotten through to them and given them some self respect to rise above the standards they have been living by.

The dog needs to go out again and his small male friends are still in bed. Off to start my day.

Summer Instability

Another hot steamy day today. A little more like late July than late June. Our pool time was disrupted by threatening thunderstorms. It appears the same may happen today.

My kids and I are a little disoriented, not really knowing what to do with all the time on our hands. There are only so many little in home projects you can motivate yourself to do in the infernal heat. Even the dog seems unenthused. He's basically planted himself firmly on a pillow on the floor of the family room for the past two days. I had such grandiose plans for daytrips to historic places, like St. Mary's City and Harper's Ferry. I wanted to go to the farm and pick fresh fruit, but I hate being out in the heat. What happens to all the motivation we have before summer actually begins? Even the kids seem to get lethargic. Their dreams of endless video games seem dull. Swimming into the evening isn't fun if the wrong kids are at the pool. The library is annoying if someone takes more then the alloted time to pick out their books. I'm sure we'll overcome.

My brain is cloudy and I need to start formulating a plan for dinner, yet I'm consumed with the lives of the characters in a book from the library. It's called "The Emperor's Children," and it's by Claire Messud. They are mostly late adolescents (emotionally, not chronologically) who live in the literary scene in NY, at least I think they are. I'might be wrong. I'm sure I'm supposed to find them endearing and pitiable, but I don't yet I still can't seem to put the book down. I find them all somewhat whiny and misguided. I think the main thing that keeps me interested in the book is trying to figure out who the patriarchical character (the emperor, I'm guessing) is going to bed. My apologies to Ms. Messud. I doubt she'll find her way to my blog where I oversimplify her work and slightly insult her. Again, I'm sorry.

My brother has a coworker who's mother is from El Salvador and she has shed some light on the whole dog doo blindness thing. It's of course, the obvious, a way to keeps kids away from dog poop. Still it seems a little extreme to me. She told him about a couple other Salvadoran superstitions. One is that you should never go to bed with wet hair or your nose will rot (sinus infection risk, maybe). The other is, place wet paper on a baby's forehead if it is in a room with a dog so evil won't get into it's brain. No clue what this is meant to prevent. I do feel relieved to know that the dog poop thing was a superstition that was meant for children and not something believed by the masses. I truly had no response to that.

I'm running out of pictures. This is one of my hydrangeas. I have 3, this one is blooming, another one is getting ready to, and the 3rd is not ready, and it doesn't appear it ever will be. One half of my garden gets virtually no sunlight and even shade plants struggle to bloom. At least they are green, and they certainly are better than the large gray gravel that was in the garden before we bought the house.

Campaign 2008, Already?

It's somewhat exhasuting to have to see candidates out on the trail, raising money and potential votes for an election that's 17 months away. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that interest groups CAN finance certain types of campaign ads in the weeks before the general election. I'm not any sort of political strategist and I'm not one of the "key demographics" anymore either (the new one is the single anxious female). I can tell you what this ruling means to me. It means that there will most likely be a lot more campaign ads for us to watch during this election. If special interest groups are going to foot part of the bill for commercials, this frees up funds in the candidates' coffers to start the ad torment early. In fact, if you happen to live in Iowa, you can see the first Obama ads today! I wonder if that sets any records for earliest presidential campaign ad? I plan to have my mute button close by for the duration of the campaign season. Stay tuned in coming months for my commercial count.

Pants man lost his lawsuit against a Washington DC dry cleaner yesterday. Did anyone seriously think he deserved to win? Our dry cleaners lost a pair of pants that went with a suit earlier this year. My husband was pretty upset. It wasn't a new suit, but it was a suit he happened to like a lot. We gave the cleaners a couple months to locate the pants, hoping in vane that someone may have accidentally taken them home and would return them. That didn't happen. The dry cleaners gave us $50 in free cleaning to compensate for the mistake. We found that to be a fair settlement. This nut was offered as much as $12,000 in compensation that he turned down. And in his case, he never proved that the pants were actually lost. The cleaners have a pair of pants that have the number of his claim check on them. So many questions accompany this lawsuit. This guy spent thousands of dollars on rental cars so he could go to other cleaners. Why not buy a car? Who expects to get alterations done the same day? I hope Judge Pearson gets some counseling. He's in dire need of it. The bright note in this is that a fund has been set up to help the dry cleaners pay their legal fees. Marc Fisher reported in his column in the Washington Post today that more that $35,000 has been raised, but well over $100,000 is needed.

We are now into day 6 of summer vacation. Days 1-4 were a little rough, but things did settle down yesterday. This is my first summer with my kids. In the past they've been in daycare and with summer babysitters. Now they've got mom. And the puppy. Puppies are a lot of work for little boys who just want to play video games and watch TV. Puppies chew on game controllers, feet, butts, backs, shoes, toys, arms, ankles, pajamas, etc, etc... Today we'll go to swim practice in the morning. Then the 5 year old and I will go to the pool where many of his friends from school will be hanging out for swimming lessons. It's going to be hot and humid again today. I had hoped to go to a local farm to pick berries but I think it'll be too hot for that today, plus my sources say strawberries are gone and it's too early for raspberries. If anyone is actually reading this, I hope you have a lovely day.

New to the Neighborhood?

I'm not actually new to my neighborhood but last summer, when my full-time corporate job was eliminated, we decided that it was a good time for me to assume the role of stay at home mom. I certainly knew some adults in the area, mainly the parents of my kids' friends, but I had no connection with any other adults in the neighborhood. A year later, I feel like I have found my home.

I had friends at work, but within a week of leaving my job, all contact with those people stopped. I would make an occasional phone call to someone with whom I had maintained a business relationship for 15 years, but my calls were not returned. My boss made it quite clear that we were through.

Now, I go to the grocery store, gym, Target, Wal-mart, etc and see people who live across the street, around the corner or down the block. I learned about the family who were the second owners of my home. I learned how much the mom loved the wallpaper in the dining room. I also promised that if I ever get around to refinishing the basement and removing the 70's paneling, I will preserve the strike zone her son's drew on the wall. I also know that I have a source for learning who's initials were carved on the post in the basement. People recognize me and compliment me on my garden.

I truly loved my job and the opportunities it afforded my family. This summer, there is no camp for the boys. I have learned how to survive without a quarterly wardrobe enhancement. It's doubtful that The Gap will get any of my back to school business. But I'm so much happier. It's nice to be greeted by your neighbors, instead of being some anonymous person who leaves at the crack of dawn and reappears after dark. My kids like being home afterschool instead of dealing with the chaos of aftercare. I've gotten to know women at church. I've taught Sunday School!

I'm not by any means suggesting that I am a better person for giving up that part of myself. It turned out well for me but that wouldn't necessarily follow for everyone. I struggled to define myself last summer. A huge part of who I was was gone overnight. But I've learned to like the person who took her place.

Sunday's in the House with Laundry

I haven't done laundry since Wednesday. There are about 5 loads to do and it is an absolutely beautiful day. This is a summer tragedy to me. I would much rather go to the pool or work in the garden than do the wash. The other tragedy is that electricity rates have gone up 50% so I did commit to using the solar dryer instead of the electric one as much as possible. The solar dryer takes a much greater time commitment. So far, I have been very inconsistent in it's use. There is a bright spot in all of this. I don't have nearly the volume of laundry in the summer. Summer clothes tend to be smaller and take up less space. I am an expert at finding the silver lining.

I do tend to be quite the slacker mom in the summer. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time my 5 year old bathed in a bathtub with soap. In my opinion, the pool counts as bathing and many of my friends see summer cleanliness the same way. My ten year old took a shower on Friday night so he's in good shape. I won't say when I bathed last, but I can tell you I will be hitting the shower myself very soon.

The dog went on an outing with us this morning which made me feel a little like Paris Hilton. We only went to the garden center up the street, but it felt pretty silly to be carrying this puny little animal. I couldn't help talking to him and kissing his little head. But then I realized I must look pretty useless to the people who were working unloading a truck and loading compost into customer's cars. I sent the dog back to the car with the 10 year old.

More about dogs. My neighbors are from El Salvador. Their daughter plays with my kids and enjoys playing with the dog. But she told us yesterday that her mother said if you watch a dog poop, you will go blind. She mentioned it to me as if she was looking for validation. I don't want to challenge any Salvadoran superstitions about which I am unfamiliar. I also don't want to insult the family. I had no idea what to say! I googled several versions of salvador, poop, dog, superstition, myth, blind and came up empty.

I am currently very well coated in mulch and sweat so I am going to shower. I am offending myself.